within my absence
by intertwingular
Summary: Chihiro Ogino immerges from the Spirit World, if only to find, that instead of the week that passed within it, was a hundred years in her own. After she grows up, Chihiro leaves, choosing to become an oddity, searching for the unexplained. Kohaku, however finds himself a leader for those who escape Yubaba, and soon hears of a woman that talks with spirits. full description inside.


**within my absence**

_(spirited away)_

**summary:** _Chihiro Ogino immerges from the Spirit World, if only to find, that instead of the week that passed within it, was a hundred years in her own. After she grows up, jaded, Chihiro leaves for the road when she turns eighteen, choosing to become an oddity, explaining and searching for the unexplained. Kohaku, however finds himself a leader for those who escape Yubaba's grasp, in those years that pass, and the river spirit without a river makes his home amongst secrets and intricacies of his own. Upon hearing of a human woman that speaks with the spirits in her realm, Kohaku knows it's her-and it just becomes a matter of waiting for Chihiro to come to him, or for him to go to her._

* * *

**absence one: forget me not blues **

_for here, am i, sitting in a tin can, far above the world, planet earth is blue, and there's nothing i can do. _

_-space oddity, david bowie _

**_Chihiro Ogino never knew that a century had passed_**, in that week with the spirits, until her father picked up the newspaper the next day, and dropped it in shock, into his toast. Her mother burst into tears, and her father had just sat there, staring bug-eyed into the wall.

Chihiro herself had simply continued to eat her cereal slowly, chewing the crunchy flakes, while panicked thoughts ran rampant in her mind. A century had passed. A century. She couldn't believe it. It had been seven days at the bathhouse! _Though_, she supposed, _time probably ran differently within the Spirit World._

Letting out a long-suffering sigh, Chihiro placed her cereal bowl into the sink, and plodded up the staircase, desperate to escape her slowly unraveling parents. When she reached her new room, Chihiro grasped at one of her plush ducks, holding it tight to her chest, as she tracked the sluggishly spinning fan that hung from her ceiling. _Rumi, Yuuki, and Ame, they were all probably long dead by now_, Chihiro realized, clutching the duck tighter and tighter.

It wasn't fair, _it wasn't fair! _All these cruddy things happened to her, from having to move because her father got transferred, to leaving the Spirit World, if only to find that a century had passed, and Chihiro herself was supposed to be long dead.

But Chihiro Ogino was naught if not a strong girl, with a strong will, so while her parent's spiraled downwards, and upwards with the days, she continued on, despite the constant ache, and the broken bits of glass in her chest.

Chihiro's first day of school was a tough one. The technology hadn't changed much, so she struggled very little with it, but her real problem lay within her peers and herself.

She was an oddity, a strange girl with odd mannerisms, and a strange aura about her. Chihiro was an eccentric, a girl far beyond her home, beyond where she belonged. She was over her head, and out of her league.

So Chihiro Ogino went, she studied, and she worked hard-and overcame the time that she had lost in the realm of the spirits. The girl succeeded where her parents could not, as she watched, with jaded eyes, and a jaded heart as they deteriorated, as they wilted, unable to deal with the shock of losing the life they had known.

And at eighteen years, Chihiro Ogino said no farewells to the sleepy town of Hara, Japan, and left for the road with nothing more than a stuffed bag, a camera, and the clothes upon her back. She had bloomed into the flower she was destined to become, yet…not quite the flower everyone thought she would be.

* * *

**_Nigihayami Kohaku Nushi, river god of the long-since gone Kohaku River_ **leafed through an old book within his library, his long length of midnight black hair tied into a low ponytail. The ends curled around the western-style chair he sat on, occasionally shifting as his shoulders moved.

It had been eight years since Haku had seen Chihiro Ogino, eight years in which he had not forgotten the promise that he had made-the one still unfulfilled. It ate at him, even as he sat, reading through the ancient magic texts.

He had done well for himself within those eight years, ending his apprenticeship with the witch, Yubaba, and becoming a sort of leader for those spirits that had seen it fit to abandon the witch and her bathhouse. Choosing to grow as a human would, the river kami no longer held the appearance of a ten year old boy-no, he had filled out, growing taller, leaner, and more handsome with the years, his figure easy on the eyes as it filled the blue and darker blue hakama, and sea-foam robe he wore over it.

The spirit sighed, looking up at the clock above his head, and closing the old book gingerly as he rose. No longer were his days filled with turbulent, and occasionally painful missions, and Yubaba had long since given up trying to win the spirit back. There were few people that the kami of the Kohaku River obeyed, and they were the Divine Counsel. Otherwise known, as the counsel of gods, with Amaterasu-no-mikoto heading the senate that governed the world of spirits.

Speaking of the Counsel-Kohaku had a meeting to attend.

**_Joy._**

* * *

Chihiro let out a breath as she reached the mountain's summit, staring into the fluffy pink clouds that swirled by in the sunset. It was getting late, and Chihiro intended to be awake when the mountain kami came out to play.

The Hadaka Mountain had caught the attention of many a person, creating many rumors about the hikers that went up to the mountain, and never came back down, as well as the music that could be heard, late at night, if one was quiet enough.

Chihiro had known instantly that it had to be the work of spirits.

So she set off for the mountain, earning looks of pity from the townspeople she passed. Of course, she ignored them, choosing rather to take pictures of the mountain's majestic beauty, and craggy cliffs in the midday light.

The sun set slowly behind her, and Chihiro heard the rustle of footsteps over grass behind her. Turning around, the brunette came eye to eye with milky white orbs that stared piercingly into her own.

No more travelers were forsaken upon the Hadaka Mountain after that night.

Kohaku listened, his attention trained onto the sun goddess, as she began to talk of a human girl, going toe to toe with the spirits that terrorized the humans, and forming bonds with those who lived peacefully. The goddess spoke of the kindness she had shown, and the understanding most spirits she encountered sensed from her.

Silently, in his seat beside his old friend, Raijin, a smile formed upon Haku's porcelain features.

It was to be a matter of time before Chihiro would find her way back to him.

* * *

**yay chapter one of this shit is up-i hope it doesn't go down in flames of angst and sadness *holds up flamethrower* **

**nah bro**


End file.
